The Irish Corsicans

He adjusted the rearview mirror and studied his own profile. He was getting older, no question about it. Still tall, still broad through the shoulders, but the cowlick was almost totally gray now above full brows speckled with silver. Weary lines appeared everywhere, and the thick scar coursed his lips under a hooked nose. "Aging was a bitch," he sighed.

He focused his attention on the two young men sitting in the back. Jack’s son and Jack’s nephew. The two of them the spitting image of him. The Irish Corsicans Jack had often called them.

As they turned into St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Marty, the nephew, sat straight as a ramrod staring out at the winter light and at the bare maple trees riffling in the breeze. His face was smooth-grained and handsome, the jet-black hair neatly parted. He was as tall as Ray but more patrician in his bearing. The nephew was decidedly more like Jack himself, Ray mused.

Aside of Marty, also in his mid-to-late twenties, sat Timmy, Jack’s son, his cheeks as red as a doll’s, his thin mouth belying the athletic build, the blocky frame reminding Ray of Jack’s brother Tommy, now deceased.

Both brothers, his compatriots, were in fact now deceased. Jack and Tommy Kelly, the leaders to whom he had given a lifetime allegiance. As he eased the car to a stop along the line of graves, he felt old and yet not ready to be put out to pasture. He knew it was because there was something in the nephew that inspired confidence, much in the same way that Jack had. The posture, the élan, the movie star looks, the coolness under fire, the don’t-fuck-with-me smile at once sinister and seducing, the eyes as intense as a butane burner.

The nephew and the son stepped from the car onto partially frozen ground, the sky above now weeping just a bit, the grayness fighting the perennial December battle with the light and winning.

Marty approached the driver’s side and signaled Ray to join them. The older man shook his head. "Not this time, Marty. I’ll come by on my own later if you don’t mind."

The nephew touched his arm and nodded in full understanding. What made a lieutenant like Ray Horan special was his ability to know the right thing to do.

Marty and Timmy Kelly approached the three workmen busy placing the headstone above Jack’s recently dug grave. It was sized exactly like the other two, the one dedicated to Jack’s parents and the one in memory of his murdered brother Tommy.

Carved into the granite in grand lettering the inscription covered the entire stone, framed by a square line at its edges.

"John Anthony Kelly

1936-1982

Father to Us All"

"Is it what you wanted?" one of the workmen asked.

Timmy brushed the wet hair back from his brow and nodded. "It is fine, very well done, Dan. What do you think, Marty?"

The nephew dropped to a knee, made the Sign of the Cross, and prayed silently for a moment. He then stood and stared at the stone. "I think he would be very pleased."

"Leave us alone now would you, Dan?" Timmy directed more than asked.

The three workmen gathered their tools and trudged toward the circumfrential roadway ringing the different sectors of the cemetery. In the east the sun suddenly gained the upper hand, slanting through the barren trees, bathing them in a faint shimmering light.

"Let’s pray for one last time," Tim said, kneeling. Marty joined him, each of them lost in his own thoughts, remembering the father and the uncle who for over twenty years had coalesced Irish crime families across the Boston area, and in the process had built a legendary reputation.

They stood almost simultaneously like Dumas’ Corsican Brothers, cousins more like twins, together since their childhood years, inseparable, fiercely loyal to one another, their youthful irrational tendencies now subdued, checkered by the need to care for those dependent on them, especially now that Jack was gone.

Thanks to Jack, they were at peace with the Italians. And they had regained the territories lost to the Mafia in the late 70’s through the deal he had cut with the New York families just prior to his death. There was time now to run their interests in relative calm.

They walked to the roadway separating the long rows of graves, the slush crunching under their feet.

"Bobby’s coming in from California tomorrow night," Timmy said. "Can you stop by my mother’s for dinner?"

"What time?" Marty asked.

"About six. We’ll have a couple of drinks with him before dinner. Okay?"

"I’ll be there," Marty replied. "One other thing," he continued. "Arrange a meet over in Charlestown for tomorrow morning at nine. Be sure all our guys are there. Chris Kiley says we have some troubles he needs to air."

"Fine," Timmy replied.

As they entered the Camry, Ray adjusted the rearview mirror. "Where to?" he asked.

"Drop me at my mother’s up on Copeland Road, Ray," Marty replied.

"How’s she doing?" Timmy asked.

"Not good. Drinking too much according to Dad."

They drove the short distance from Wyoma Square to Copeland Road in silence, the lush homes along Lynnfield Street leading to the even newer developments in the hills surrounding the main thoroughfare. As they approached a red split-level at the top of an incline, Ray slowed and pulled over to the curb.

***

She responded to the first ring, opening the door widely. Sheila Kelly embraced her only son and began her nervous chatter as soon as the door closed behind him.

"Marty! What a pleasant surprise in the middle of the afternoon! Do you know Bobby’s in town to see his mother tomorrow? Can you make it?"

He stepped back, holding her at arm’s length, smiling in his attempt to relax her, to unwind her. "Hey, Mom, slow down! I was just in the neighborhood. Timmy and I stopped at St. Joseph’s to see the new headstone at Uncle Jack’s gravesite. We..."

Sheila flinched and stepped away as if a cloud had passed over the sun. She raised a shaking hand toward her hair and played with its strands. She put her teeth on her lower lip.